With inflation, the cost of automobiles and automotive repairs has markedly increased. Also, in the design of automobiles, particularly sports cars, the automobile side panels may frequently be devoid of any protective mounting, such as a chrome strip, which would protect the side panels against impact. While the absence of a protective strip on the side panel of an expensive automobile may greatly improve its appearance, the automobile is, then, much more susceptible to damage when parked in close proximity to other automobiles in a lot.
A relatively common form of damage to a parked automobile is a dented side panel resulting from the opening of the door of an adjacent automobile. When automobiles are parked close together, it is frequently very difficult, if not impossible, to enter an automobile without opening the automobile door sufficiently wide to bring it into contact with the side panel of an adjacent automobile. If the person entering an automobile is careless or impatient, the automobile door may well be opened with sufficient force to put a dent in the side panel of the adjacent vehicle. Due to the high cost of automotive repairs, dents of this nature may be so expensive to remove that the car owner will simply resign himself to having his expensive car dented by discourteous or careless people who bang their doors into the side panels of the immediately adjacent vehicles.
At present, resilient moldings are available which can be affixed to the side panels of an automobile to offer it some form of protection against being bumped by the doors of closely adjacent vehicles. However, such moldings do not offer much protection because the moldings are too narrow and do not adequately cover the "bump area" which is a strip 6 to 10 inches wide extending along an automobile side panel for a distance of about three feet or more at approximately the height of the automobile door handle. Further, the addition of a permanent protective mounting to an automobile side panel may destroy the beauty of the automobile by breaking up the smooth and simple lines of its exterior surface.
In view of the above difficulties, it would be desirable to have a bump protector which could be temporarily mounted on the side panels of a parked automobile to protect the vehicle from bumps resulting from the opening of the doors to immediately adjacent vehicles. Although temporary, such a temporary bump protector would be securely mounted on the side panel of a parked automobile such that it could not be dislodged by wind forces and could not be easily stolen. Further, such a temporary bump protector would desirably be foldable into a compact package when not in use so that the bump protector could be conveniently carried and stored.